Monday, 22 August 2011

You Never Know When you Might Need a Translator

A few years ago I was given some temporary cold calling work by an international translation agency setting up an office in the UK. It wasn't very well paid at the time, but the contract had a commission element, and 12 months down the line a nice fat cheque arrived, so I was glad I'd done it.

It did mean that I learnt something about what people wanted from translation agencies. Recently I've come across another translation agency which has a very impressive list of clients here in the UK, and is obviously getting things right. It has its headquarters in London but its web site lists offices in Shanghai, Paris, New York and Luxembourg.

It offers a range of translations servicescovering 150 languages, just a small fraction of the estimated 6 to 8,000 spoken languages thought to exist in the world, but still a formidable number in my book. They also have specialist translators who can cope with medical, financial, legal and other types of jargon.

So for example they can provide atranslation service on a report from a foreign hospital for someone who needs continued treatment for an illness after returning home. That happened to my son when he was younger and we'd taken him on holiday. He had an operation in France; his symptoms recurred when he was back, so he ended up in our local hospital. I don't know whattranslation company was used at the time, but it's good to know there are translation companies out there which can help at such a time.